Reconstructed photograph of area near Senozeti, Yugoslavia,
where several people witnessed a UFO in February, 1977.

FROM
THE
EDITOR
of light impulses
spectacular

I /MUFON UFO
I JOURNAL
I

A
UFO witnessed in
the province of
Karelia in Russia
in September has
been satisfactorily explained
by James Oberg.
The object was
described as an
immense ball of
light with shafts
of light shining
down from it. TASS
described the eventi
"A huge s'tar suddenly
flashed out of a dark
sky, sending shafts

103OldtowneRd.
Seguin, Texas 781 55

DENNIS WILLIAM HAUCK
Editor

WALTER H.ANDRUS
Director of MUFON

to earth".
Oberg has identified the UFO as the
launch of Cosmos 9551
a top-secret Russian
spy satellite launched
at night from the Plesetsk Missile Base9
north of Moscow.
The incident left
the official news agency
in the embarrassing position of acknowledging
a UFO rather than divulge
the existance of the secret space center.

In this issue
UFO SPOTTED IN YUGOSLAVIA
By kilos Krmelj
AUSTRALIAN CATALOGUES
By Richard Hall
ENCOUNTER AT SEA. «.. o. c
............
By Maximiliano del Rosa
UFOS OVER THE WALDVIERTEL..e . „. c. e
oo
By Ernst Berger
UFCS COLLIDE OVER BRAZIL.«.e.................
By 0. Raymundo
LITTLE BALLS AND UFCS
By Jean Bastide
THE PENTAGON FANTRY IS NOT BARE..e.........o
A

The contents of the MUFON UFO JOURNAL are
determined by the editor, and do not necessarily
represent the official position of MUFON. Opinions
of contributors are their own, and do not necessarily
reflect those of the editor, the staff, or MUFON.
Articles may be forwarded directly to MUFON or to:
Dennis W. Haucti, 114 Gostlln St., Hammond, IN 46327

Permission is hereby granted to quote from this Issue
provided not more than 200 words are quoted from
any one article, the author of the article is given
credit, and the statement "Copyright 1977 by the
MUFON UFO JOURNAL, 103 Oldtowne Rd., Seguin,
Texas" is Included.

16
17
19
20

Milos Krmelj

Not ong time ago
UFO-NLP
Sekcija ZVEZA SOLT Studentsko
naselje blok VII 61000 Ljubljana,
Slovenija, Yugoslavia, which is
the oldest and most known UFO
organization in Yugoslavia, sent
a letter describing a UFO spotting.
Two of our members went to the
field investigation, and in order to
obtain the most faithful picture of
the event. We arrived to a little
idylic village, near Senozeti. It is
situated some 18 kilometers(ten
miles) from Ljubljana, its altitude
being relatively high, about 700
meters above sea level. The village
offers a beautiful view on the surrounding hills. We soon came into
contact with the two main eyewitnesses, Metoda G, 18 years old.
(We have their address in our files)
She sent us the above-mentioned
letter, and her mother Helena G.
The statement of the two reads
as follows: "It happened on February 4th 1977, early in the morning. Outside it'was still dark; the
eastern sky only begun to become
red. The valley was covered with
the light mist, and the sky was
interspersed with little clouds. The
sun was not visible. It was around
6:30 a.m. When my mother and I
left the house. About 100 meters
from the house, I suddenly spotted
an orange-coloured glowing body
that had been the shape of an ellipse. Till that moment, my mother
had not noticed anything, but suddenly she cast her eyes forward
and shouted: "Look, Metoda, what
is this thing up these?" "I can not
say what it might be" I answered.
We went on, observing the sky.

UFO is reconstructed over actual
photograph of the area.
That thing was a very big one. We
could compare it's size to that: if
I stretched out my arm. I would
just cover it with my two extended
fingers. The object was hovering
fixedy above the forest. While
continuing our way, the object
disappeared, and then we saw an
unusual appearance. Something
was glowing behind the hill and it
seemed as though a house or the
forest was on fire. I got very scared
and told my mother that it would
have been best if we returned
home or at least stopped because
it looked like our forest was on fire.
Nevertheless we continued our way
and the light behind the trees was
more and more spreading around.
"What if there is fire that broke out
in the nearby village?" shrinked

my mother and added: "let's hurry,
perhaps they will need our help in
extinguishing the fire. We started
to run. Since the path ran through
the woods, we took a short-cut
across the fields. We made hast
fearing in our hearts and at the
same time hoping that our presumption of the fire was not true.
When we reached again the road,
paralell to the chapel from where
the source of the light should have
been perfectly visible, we saw
nothing. The light disappeared
as suddenly as it had appeared.
We made observations of the hill
of the sky, we looked all around
us but all in vain. We are not able
to give an explanation of the light.
The whole observation lasted some
10-15 minutes since we got pretty

3

AUSTRALIAN CATALOGUES AID
RESEARCH

By Richard Hall

Another reconstructed photograph
of UFO and actual area in which
it was seen.
far from our house. We listened
attentively but there was no sound
whatsoever, coming from around
us. There was complete silence.
Neither did we notice any smoke
or something like that coming from
the spot. We really did not know
what it was all about. People who
know us belived us for they know
we do not tell lies.
Later on, we made some inquiries around the village, wondering if someone else had also seen
the light, but nobody could tell us
anything about it."
While being interviewed, the two
eye-witnesses recalled some other
particulars. On the object, they
noticed certain points that were
brighter than the orange background. We asked them how many
points there were on the object
and they said there were 4-7 points
on it. They could not give us precise number. Helena G. also stated
she had very strange feeling as if
4

these "points" had been observing
them. When we mentioned that
they could have mistaken the object
for the doud or some optical illusion, both witnesses stated that
this was not probable and that they
are both convinced that the object
was real and massive. Let me
quote also Helena G., who says
she has never heard before of
UFOs neither did she know that
something like that could exist.
Her daughter and she, they are
both convinced they witnessed
a real very extraordinary phenomenon.
Later it was estimated the distance between the spot in which the
object should have been hoovering
and the one on which the two eyewitnesses spotted it first. It was
about 400-600 meters. The altitude
of the object above the edge of
the forst is estimated to be around
ten degrees.
(Continued on page 18)

Members of UFO Research,
South Australia, and the Tasmania
UFO Investigation Centre havejoined forces to produce a series of
catalogues on special types of UFO
cases. Active in this work is Keith
Basterfield of UFOR and Paul
Jackson of TUFOIC, both MUFON
Representatives, along with other
Austrlian researchers.
Humanoid reports are being
catalogued by the Australian
Entity Study Group, the down
under counterpart of MUFON's
Humanoid Study Group; the two
groups are exchanging information
"An Australian Catalogue of Close
Encounter Type Three Reports,"
with supplements, has already
been published. Also in print is
"A Preliminary Listing of Australasian Close Encounter, Apparent
Occupant and Physical Trace
Cases," by Keith Basterfield.
Paul Jackson wrote in March,
"I am currently compiling an
Australian Car Pace Catalogue...
the first of its type in this country.
Many of the other groups in this
country will also be working on
various UFO catalogues during the
year; it is hoped to catalogue as
many sightings as possible so that
they will become available to
serious researchers world wide."

Encounter
At Sea
The sighting took place in an
area of the ocast of the Cudillero
(Oviedo) province, Spain, called
Gavinero beach, on the evening of
a Friday to Saturday (or Saturday to
Sunday) in the first days of October
1973. The witness I interviewed
wasn't able to precisely pin-point
the date of the sighting, due to the
fact that nearly two years had passed between the night of the event
and the days inwhich I carried out
the investigation. On that day the
witnesses, Mr. Manuel Silgas and
Mar. Angel Gonzalez Martinez
were placing nets in an area embraced between the "beaches" of
Conchiquina and of Gavieiro at
approximately 8:15 p.m. The witnesses were working on row
boat from which they were raising
their nets in an orderly fashion
along a circuit which began in
Tronco, continued by Conchi
Quina and which ended close to two
rocks called the Entreyubias;
from here they returned back to the
beginning of the run. On the first
occasion inwhich they worked in
the vicinity of the Entreyubias
they could still see, underneath a
fleeting sunset, a light which was
moving silently from the large
rocks known as the Altar de los
Santos, towards the land, following
the rocky shoreline of Gavieiro.
When they returned the second
time to the above mentioned spot

By Maximiliano del Rosal
(From pages 3-6 of the May 1976
issue of STENDEK)
Translated by Ricardo Aguilar

and upon lighting a lantern, the
. light moved rapidly from the shore
up to the Entreyubias, maintaining
itself motionless while illuminating
the large rock and the two witnesses, some three meters above the
water's surface.
.The lantern, which they used
only while lifting the nets inorder
to check their contents, was common. It had white and red lights,
although the latter was not used.
They worked at half-tide, with a
clear moonless sky and with sufficient visibility. The closeness of
the light, some 50 to 70 meters from
them, did not cause any uneasiness
since, accordig to a tape recording
that I made of Mr. Selgas, he said
to his companion, "It is a boat
which is roving like us."

We should make it clear that
Manuel Selgas is the witness of
major interest, as he was the one
that was rowing and of the two he
. was most familiar with the area,
also, while his friend lifted the nets,
he had a better opportunity to observe the light, since he was facing
the movements of the object.
When they saw the light going
back and forth from the Altar de los
Santos to the shoreline and vice
versa, it illuminated the coast,
always remaining 1.80 to 2 meters
above the water, with a speed of
about 20 km/hour and with a reddish appearance. The movement of
the object was very rapid, simultaneously it increased in size (like a
handball at the shoreline and like
an ordinary traffic light signal when

it stopped over the rocks) and in
clarity, with a less reddish tone. In
the location of maximum proximity
it illuminated the witnesses with
out dazzling them.
The light remained there and the
two friends gave it no importance.
Only when the witnesses withdrew
did the light return to its original
position. They found it there when
they returned for a third time to
the Entreyubias and, as soon as
they lifted the nets and put the
lantern on, the luminous object, for
a second time moved exactly to the
same place as in the previous occasion. This repitition intrigued the
two fishermen, so much so as to
make Mr. Selgas comment, "They
are watching us." In his declaration he expressed his astonishment in the presence olf that lighgt
which "came so rapidly over the
baxos (rocks which are partially
exposed^ at. half-tide):'' My db'sesr
sion was how they managed to
come over the rocks up to where
we were."
As in the previous occasion,
when they withdrew from the rocks
the object returned to its' maneuvers between the Altar de los
Santos and the Gavieiro shore.
Goaded by their curiosity, as they
were passing Conchiquina on their
way to Tronco, they signaled with
the lantern and the light, in spite of
the considerable distance of the
witnesses, repeated its rapid movement up to the rocks of Entreyubias.
By then they had rejected the
idea of the object being a boat and
they began to suspect that the object might be related to smugglers;
which was not at all improbable. At
this point Manuel had come up with

a small plan: "look, you stay in
the boat and I'll swim over to the .
Entreyubias and when the light
comes, well I'll know if it's a boat or
whatever it is. They won't be able
to see me below the water because
I'll have my mask and tube. Then
I'll stay under the water and inbetween the seaweed and I'll look
to see what it is, to see what boat
it is, to see who they are." Angel
opinionated that the plan was
risky because if they were smugglers
they might see him; after considering the idea of approaching by land,
Selgas abandoned his interesting
plans and well according to what he
told me, the opinions of his friend
set him back; "he scared me,"
Selgas said.
Both men decided that when
they would return for a fourth time
they would be more quiet and
would not put the lantern on for
any reason. This is the way it was
done and as soon as they reached
the same spot as before, the light
("that torrent of light on top of us")
returned to its position on top of the
rocks. It appears that this was too
much for the witnesses, who abandoned their nets and left, leaving
them there until the following day
during which they came by to pick
them up.
Its sudden changes didn't end
there. While passing Conchiquina
on their final departure and after
observing that the mysterious light
was returning to its maneuvers
along the shore, Selgas saw how
the object was moving a bit more
farther out, past the Altar de los
Santos. The object increased its
speed causing Selgas to climb on
the bench and exclaim, "Imagine
Angel, what motors that animal
must have inorder for it to be

moving the way it is, look,...
look at it!" In the blink of an eye
the light disappeared out to sea
toward the Northeast.
The case interested me, because
I have known Manuel Selgas, a
mason by profession, for many
years. Together with his wife
he runs a gas station located in the
intersection of the national highway
632 (Aviles-Luarca) with the road
which goes to the port of Cudillero.
I have evidence of his integrity and
normalcy. Futhermore there exist
in my opinion a series of circumstances which support the story.
Selgas is an experienced fisherman (he has participated in contests at the provincial level and in
a national championship which
took place some years ago in Barcelona) and thus, he is very accustomed to the phenomenon which
are produced at sea, be it by day
or by night., ' ,
,.
Neither Selgas nor his companion
although they were aware that they
were.witnessing "something rare",
related the phenomenon to a UFO
encounter for the simple reason
that they aren't familiar with the
subject.
They silently agreed in not giving
any publicity to the affair. It was
only a few months ago that I found
out about the case while in a casual
conversation with Selgas. Manuel
repeatedly expressed his surprise
at the amount of importance that
I attached to his story,; thus he told
me "if I would have known that I
was getting myself into such a mess
I wouldn't have said anything."
It is interesting to note that, in spite
intact, for in the successive times
that I asked him to tell me the
developments of the sighting,
I could not find any errors with re-

gard to previous accounts. I had to
make him see the strange aspects
of the event, so that he could begin
to suspect that he was witness to
something not very conventional.
To start off with the object was
totally silent, which would have
been impossible had it been a ship
of any means of propulsion, except
for navigation by sails or oars.
But even in this case the rapid
maneuvers in the vicinity of the
witnesses and the speed with which
it disappeared would have been
extremely difficult to carry out in
an area filled with dangerous,
partially or totally covered rocks.
Futhermore it is also strange that
the light, which according to the
witness, illuminated all directions
equally, didn't show for any
moment the structure which supported it, whether it was above or
below, "I didn't see any boat
underneath". Also, whether the
object was stationary or mobile, it
did not exhibit any type of osscilation thus it couldn't have been
something attached to a mast or
other floating object, which would
have had at least some gentle
oscillating motion, especially when
it was stationed near the rocks.
But, apart from what was said
before, I consider the description of
the light as much as the way in
which it disappeared as being fundamental in this case.
That light which illuminated all
directions uniformly was a "rare
light," something unconventional.
"Not of a lantern nor of a car's
headlight. It was like a blowtorch
when it is cutting, but without the
sparks, of a rare color. It was as
if something was burning, but without the flame moving from its
source. As if there were a circle
outside which wouldn't permit the
flame to leave from there." Before

this final evaluation, I asked him if
the light had any defined boarders.
He assured me that it didn't, that
the flame couldn't leave from the
circle, but that there wasn't any'
boarder.
With regard to the speed with
which it disappeared the testimony can't be any more concise,"
it disappeared like a star disappears when it comes down, when
you lose it." According to the story
the object began to increase its
speed while passing in front of the
Altar de los Santos, it also increased its altitude swiftly although
the witness isn't too sure in this.
According to him, the distance
traveled by the object from where it
picked up speed up to where it disappeared might have been from 700
to 800 meters, although he isn't at
all sure, since it could have disappeared maybe because of the
distance or because it was lost in
the horizon. Whatever the case
may be it is certain that it did it
"like a fleeing star, like a sputnik."
After presenting the story, the difficult task remains for the investigator to interpret it. In this case,
in the absence of physical evidence
and as the witnesses can't give a
description of the structure which
supported the light, it is inevitable
but to accept as most probable the
interpretation that the object was
one of those rare and little understood atmospheric phenomenon,
which generally take the shape of
rays in a globe or balls of plasma.
Of course, in contrast to this calm
interpretation, one should think in
the abnormal and cunous behovior
of this supposed atmospheric phenomenon, since at least theoretically it shouldn't have behave so
systematic in its maneuvers, as
it did that night in the fall of 1973.

1977MUFON
SYMPOSIUM
PROCEEDINGS
(166 pages)

UFOs: WHAT'S YOUR BALL GAME?

by

Thomas M. Gates, Sunnyvale, CAIIf. MUFON
Consultant in Astronomy

FURTHER EVIDENCE OF UFO RADIATION
BY James M. McCampbell, Belmont, Calif.,
MUFON Director ol Research and Author or
UFOLOGY.

UFOs Collide Over Brazil!
A strange collision took place in
the skies of Icoaraci (Latitude
1 degree 18 minutes South, Long.
48 degrees 28 minutes West), a
quiet village near Belem do Para,
Brazil. All the villagers came outdoors to watch the unusual happening, on the evening of May 17,1977.
For the highly supertitious it .
meant the very end of this world,
and many started praying and crying. For the most skeptical, it was
the results of a government or
the results of a government experi- r
ment or caused by some ardent
firecracker. But most of the eyewitnesses declared it was a dazzling
experience, whatever they witness- ed in their small village that Tuesday evening. â&#x20AC;˘
The skies were dark and clean, â&#x20AC;˘
with no moon in the warm tropical
sky. At about 9:30-p.m., people in
the streets started hearing a steady
deafning loud sound,, like many
continuous thunder laps. People
inside their houses came out and.
joined the passerbys, all staring at
the skies in astonishment.
Two blazing balls, with no definite outline, coming in North-South
opposite directions, crashed in the
sky. According to the witnesses,
the fiery object coming from the
north was rose in color, and the one
coming from the south was greenish. After the sudden collision, a
tremedous flash took place and a
pink smoke filled a large area in
the sky, dissipating about 20
minutes after the collision.
In the local police station, the
affidavit of Chief Ronaldo Silva was
joined by the opinion of Agent Trin-

8

byO. Raymundo

dade and three military troopers,
all on duty that night. It was presumed that the loud sound, preceeding the huge collision, was produced by the unbridled run of the
UFOs one against another. Although the possibility of a crash
between two small airplanes was
taken into consideration, no trace
of wreckage or any debris was
found in the area, after an immediate search by the authorities.
It was learned from official statements also, that the collision of the
UFOs did not cause explosion
with debris but only a loud crackling sound, like the striking of lightning. This fact was compared to
another weird happening in the
1950's, when a bolt of lightning
struck a river, in a neighboring
village, also leaving a reddish color
in the vicinity for severaldays.
According to other sources a few
days before in the small village of
Moreni, town of Benevides (Pop.
13,000), a fisherman known by the
name Jango, saw on a clear afternoon, a strange object cruising the
sky.
A few days later, this author was
futher notified by a correspondent
that a contraditory note was published in the same newpapers,
stating that some signal firework
devices were recently stolen from a
local fishing company, "which led
to the conclusion that the unusual
phenomenon was clearly explainable". Probably the usual debunking pressure by the authorities was
put into effect, denying the extraterrestrial theory.
Other opinions and discussions

headed this author to examine the
ball lightning phenomenon hypothesis, with no convincing results
either. Being a very rare type of
natural phenomenon and as yet
unexplained by the science, ball
lightning is known to have some
basic peculiarities such as: a small
size ball with luminous colors between orange-reddish or yellowish;
of very short duration; moving most
of the time horizontally; and sometimes rising and exploding or poping in the air. Indeed, it has never
been photographed! Conclusively,
it can be said that there is no factual
explanation for the ball lightning
phenomenon itself, and quite possibly, no link at all with the bizarre
phenomenon witnessed in Brazil.
Past research and investiation
into similar UFO activity may lead
us to accept more: that such luminous display could be related to
some intelligent controlled devices
that may have become out of control and were intentionally flown
into each other.
The area of the incident (Belem
do Para' in the estuary of the great
Amazon River), has seen many
mysterious objects in the skiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and some of them plunging into the
waters, too. South America has
been known to be one of the greatest areas of UFO activity in the last
decades, and a close study might
lead the dedicated ufologist into
most interesting conclusions.

UFOs Over The
Waldviertel Highlands
December 14, 1974, between
6:45 and 7 p.m. (CET) Hans Pritz,
22 year old compositor working at
Zwettle and living at Traunstein,
started his car and left for Kaltenbach. Near the garage that was a
major reference in the October
1973 sightings the road branches
off to the right. The night was
starry, even too starry. One especially bright "star" seemed to be
out of place, twinkling 4 degrees
above the horizon. Pritz turned the
car around and drove home to fetch
his 8 x 40 "Revue" binoculars with
a field of 6.5 degrees. A few
minutes later he trained the binoculars on the "star." What he
saw was enough to cause him to
drive 1.7 km further to the southwest and park his car in a field.
"Have you ever watched the
beacon light of a patrol car?,"
Pritz asked. "It was very much like
that, a patch of light going round
and round." The object was as
bright as Jupiter (about - 2 magnitude), basically yellowish, but
changed colors a little.
The
'' beacon'' rotated continuously
about 1 revolution per second.
Pritz compared it to a searchlight
rotating counterclockwise behind
the object's rim so that only the
bright glow was visible. (Mr. Lennartz of Hochries hut, Bavaria,
witnessed the same phenomenon,
but rotating clockwise. See SKYLOOK No. 87, Feb. 1975).
"Every time the light would
reach a position at the lower left,
10

Pritz said, "it would ge kind of a
push and run again at its usual
rate. (It would accelerate from this
point-Ed.) With binoculars you'd
see clearly that the rotating light
even cast a shadow or a faint line
inside the object's front side at
a certain position, and it had maximum brilliance there, and a faint
hajo." The object also projected a
motionless ray from the upper left
edge straight upwards to a point
about two object diameters distant,
where it ended abruptly.
The object hovered 5 degrees
over the horizon with Mt. Jauerling
which has an important TV tower,
and above some trees near the road
to Lugmuehle, but at considerable
distance. It was on a bearing of
114 degrees, which .is nearly the
same azimuth obtained from the
garage point, so we couldn't fix the
true distance. The fuzzy globe remained stationary for 5 minutes,
then moved slowly and horizontally
to the west, stopped again at 126
degrees azimuth for a minute, then
continued westward. (Pritz then
noticed a carmine red "dot" in the
beacon's first position, but lower,
flying eastward at moderate
speed. The "dot" was intermittently visible.--Ed.)
"The beacon object flew further
to the west," Pritz continued, there
was ho sound at all the whole time,
and disappeared behind a cloud."
(At 140 degrees azimuth, 4 degrees
elevation).
- -This report reached us by chance

and the witness, who chose to
remain anonymous, is not acquainted with the Pritz family. Mrs. X
lives in an isolated wooded valley
with scattered houses, south of
Poeggstall, which lies 15 km SSE of
Traunstein and 7 km W of the
Ostrong mountains. She is an old
country wife in her sixties, walking
with a limp after a leg injury and
with reduced hearing, but impressive mental freshness and interest in natural phenomena.
Her testimony was simple and
honest from beginning to end, we
agreed after analysis of the tapes.
On a clear morning before Christmas 1974 (according to the weather
logs it was clear at 7 a.m. on Dec.
21, 22, 23, and 24) she entered the
anteroom of her country house at
6:30 a.m. After her first glance into
the dark north through the large
window, she stood transfixed.
"What's going on out there,"
she thought. "It was a globe,
halfway up the mountain—it's
called Mt. Mandelgupf—, and it
was swinging, and like a sword
throwing out sparks." The witness
described it vividly while we were
at thw site. "I went back into the
kitchen at once to get the time—
6:30 precisely...And the sword was
like the globe, it all fitted together.'
Very low in the north, over a
meadow in the valley and in front of
the Mandelgupf slope, a globe
hovered in mid-air.
It wasn't
motionless, but swinging to and fro
(Continued on page 12)

AND UFQS
The famous american Ufologist
James M. McCanipbell has written that "when witnesses report
a UFO sighting involving an object
moving near the surface of a body
of water, they may describe a ripple
effect oh the water which appears
to have been caused by the object.
The UFO researcher should be
interested in studying the possible
cause of this effect, and what this
may suggest about the nature of
UFOs" (1) We must bear in mind
that although no definite conclusions can actually be reached regarding the means of propulsion
and the effects of UFOs, science
can nevertheless be utilized to
resolve the UFO phenomenon.
As we now know, such ripples could
be a key effect to explain more
strange effects.
In fact, on October 21, 1963 a
very curious observation took place
in Argentina, near the town of
Trancas. As written by Mr. Oscar
A. Galindez, "beneath the airspace where the object "f" (one of
the 6 objects involved in this case)
had been rocking to and fro, and
within a circle 28 to 30 ft. in diameter, they (the witnesses) found
forming a perfect cone 3 feet
high, innumberable "little white
balls" 1/2 inch in diameter. Next
day, they found similar little balls
on the railway line (where the other
objects had been seen), but not in
such vast quantity as in the garden
The little balls crumpled under
gentle pressure. The head of the
chemical laboratory of the Institute

by Jean Bastide, MUFON
Representative In South France

of Chemical Engineering in the
University of Tucuman, Sr. Walter
Gonzalo Tell, did an analysis of
them, which showed that they contained 96.48% of calcium carbonate
arid 3.51% of potassium carbonate" (2) Now, the witnesses
have stated that this object "f" was
"a solid body some 28 to 30 feet, in
diameter, its surface appearing to
be of metal, resembling aluminium' ' and that the object was at less
than 5 ft. from the ground, rockling
to and fro without revolving and
that "A Whitish Mist was coming
out of its lower extremity", the
whitish mist "giving off a penetrating odor resembling the smell of
sulphur." (3)
We can also quote the Galssboro
(New Jersey, USA) landing case:
the two teenage boys of Mr. Ward
C. Campbell-technically trained
and a prominent citizen of Galssboro-were fishing in a pond in an
off-bounds orchard when they were
approached by two tall men, barefoot, and long-haired. The thin
and blond young men impresed
the two teenagers by "their beautiful ("non-pimply") fair complexions".
As related by Mr.
Berthold Eric Schwarz, "this meeting was unusual for this time of the
ye'ar and place, for the ground was
gravel and broken glass (the men
being barefoot). Also, in a small
town everyone knows everyone
else. This was before the .time of
the "hippies", and the two young
men were total strangers. They
asked the teenage poachers about

UFOs and specifically wondered if
they were interested in seeing one.
The long and short of it is that
shortly afterwardâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;almost before
their very eyesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;there was a widely
observed and documented (discounting a ludicrous cover-up)
landing and the deposit of some
"Whitish Powder-like Substance
that was originally The Size Of
Golf Balls, but which shrunk down.
When it was picked up by a policeman, he droppd it quickly, in surprise, because it was cold as an
ice cube. It retained the cold
feeling for at least 24 hours". The
teenagers were reluctant to report
to their straight-laced father what
they had done, not only because of
the weird, possibly UFO-related
experiences, but because of the fact
that they were late in getting home,
and they were fearful of being
scolded for fishing where they were
not supposed to be! (4)
One can make several important
remarks:
a) in the two cases, the balls
seems to have always the same size
between them, as if a strictlydefined weight could not be exceeded.
b) in the two cases, the balls are
whitish; and crumbly, therefore
formed of powder.
c) in the first case (Trancas, the
balls formed a cone, as if they were
created by a field of axial symmetry
such a magnetic one.
The conclusions are quite simple:
the UFOs can induce an antigravitational field, of axial sym11

metry, and greater in the centre
inducing itself the formation of
little spheres composed of soil
powder attracted and conglomerated, by an effect roughly similar
to the one known in outerspace, in
which the particules conglomerated
themselves into spheres, the gravitation being near to zero (independently of the well known effect
of surface tension for liquids).
The process could therefore be
as follows:
a) the soil powder begins to conglomerate.
b) the size limit (weight) being
reached, the whitish powder balls
drop to the ground, being too heavy
to be now attracted.
We can also think that the
gravitational field is highest in the
center, decreasing to the periphery,
to be almost equal to zero outside
the radius of the UFO, roughly.
We can infer also that the field
whatever it may be exactly—is
constant, unchanged, during this
short lapse of time, the UFO
being stationary.
Is it not strange that a few facts
could have given so much in the
way of concepts! We can add now
that carbonates are very common
in terrestrial soil, being very crumbly, to form an impalpable powder
(by the effect of wind erosion).
We can think, too, that the field of
the UFOs can induce the formation
of calcium and potassium carbonates with the calcium and potassium of the soil, combined with
the atmospheric carbon dioxide.
In conclusion, the question to be
answered first must be: why have
there not been more cases like
these? Probably, many conditions
must be realized to obtain the ideal
conditions of atmospheric and soil

12

compositions. We must hope that
further cases will bring us more
facts, which will, in return, strengthen this theory. We must note the
cone may (almost) reach the object,
being 3 ft. high, the periphery of
the UFO being at 5 ft. high only.

(Continued from page 10)
gently, like a pendulum (the first
time the pattern would appear in
the flap). At the same time it
seemed to be moving slowly E on
a straight course, towards the slope
of Mt. Hofkogel, S of Mandelgupf.
Mrs. X continued: "First I said—
for heavens sake, what does it
mean? Is the thing going to
explode? ...It was like a sword,
and it changed from left to right
alternately, but the ball remained.
But the most interesting to me
was the sparks, like a blacksmith
hammering a red-hot iron, but only
for seconds." As soon as the sword
would extend to full length, lots of
tiny sparks "like tiny stars" sprayed up and down from a point in the
middle of the appendage, halfway
from the globe to the outer tip. It
extended to the left and then
to the right reciprocally and without
a stop. The sparks seemed to be
dependent on full extension of the
peak; for they never appeared
outside this period. The globe and
extension were about 2 moon diameters in aparent size.
(Mrs. X went to her son's house,
next down the slope, to see if he
was awake but he wasn't. When
she returned the ball was partly
obscured by trees. Only the upper
shower of sparks remained visible
for a while longer until the object
moved away. Total time of observation was 8-10 minutes. The investigators calculated the size of
the object to be over 5 meters in
diameter, the height less than
60 meters and more than 20
60 meters and more than 20 meters
above the terrain. Mrs. X inquired
in the neighborhood, but no one/
else reported seeing the thing//
--Ed.)

A Response to Richard Hall's
Commentary by Ray Stanford

! fiantt
I wish to thank Dennis w. Hauck,
MUFON JOURNAL editor, for this
opportunity to respond in depth to
the extensive statements of Richard
Hall (MUFON JOURNAL, November, 1976) concerning himself,
myself, and my book Socorro
'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry.
Hall asks why I waited twelve
years "...to make a public issue of
the Socorro case..." He also asks
why I did not protest and force the
issue (of whether there was a
NASA coverup of the metallic
evidence) with NICAP. Hall must
have forgotten that I did, via two
phone conversations with him.
I urged him to consult experts in
techniques of analysis, as I had
already done (see pages 148 and
149 in my book), and, thus, learn
for himself that in evaluating the
X-ray diffraction test, for example,
Frankel and his assistants could not
have mistaken mere silica to be a
zinc-iron alloy.
Concerning Hall's quandary as to
why I waited until now to tell of my
Socorro investigation. It took me
about five years of careful checking
and cross-checking facts to 'assemble all the data in Socorro
'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry,
nearly five hundred pages long!
I tried for five more years to get a
publisher to handle it. The answer
was always to the effect that, while
the manuscript was the best-documented one they had ever seen
concerning UFOs and very convincing, it was simply too long and
filled with too much "engineerese"

to be popularly published. So, in
early 1975 I finally found time to
severely edit it down-to size and
remove the technical language.
Only then did a small local publisher, Blueapple Books, accept it.
Hall says I had an "...obvious
desire at the time to believe" that
I had "the conclusive physical
proof of UFOs." In the first place,
no one in a balanced state of mind
could possibly believe that tiny
metallic slivers—regardless of
how 'strange—could be "the conclusive proof of UFOs." Nowhere
in the book or elsewhere do I call
the Socorro metallic slivers "conclusive physical proof of UFOs"
which obviously they were not. If
my attitude during the Socorro investigation and the reporting of it
was subjective as Hall now suggests, why did Hall write me (on
NICAP stationery) on May 5, 1964,
saying, "Your taped report arrived,
and I found it extremely thorough
and intelligently done. We are
grateful to you for this job"?
However, Hall may not be impugning my 1964 work on the case.
Yet, as the importance of the Socorro case became more evident, my
caution and thoroughness, if anything, increased.
Hall complains that I mentioned
on June 20, 1975, my forthcoming
book, but "...did not say that the
book would be highly critical of
me." Of course not. The book is
not highly critical of Hall. Where
he and NICAP were negligent, I
say so, but I was never highly

critical of him.
Hall refers to a report in my book
that "fused sand" was found at the
landing site. He says my source
was a letter from the late Dr. James
McDonald, to him, a copy of which
was sent to me. That is true.
Although I do not literally say that
the letter was obtained from Dr.
McDonald, changes made in a rush
at the last minute before printing
certainly make it sound as if I am
saying that. (Reference to the McDonald letter was inserted at the
last minute—when the initial
negatives for the printing plates
had already been made.
Space
factors were already defined and,
hence, the material was much too
contracted.) Failure to acknowledge Hall as the source was a very
inappropriate and
unfortunate
oversight which will be corrected
in any future editions. For its
occurrence I duly apologize. Hall's
help is acknowledged in the front
of the book, but, unfortunately, not
where it should have been.
Another point Hall makes • is
possibly correct. My dating of the
Goddard trip could have been off
one week, since I have no reason to
doubt Walter Webb's diary. My
error, if it was such, must have
occurred in my working back from
notes placed in wrongly dated
envelopes before the book was
written.
Hall makes a point of concern
because copies of tapes and notes I
supposedly made, including a
"tape...which he claims to have

13

made surreptitiously while riding
in the car with Walt Webb and me
to NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center," were not sent to him as
requested on July 21, 1976. The
background for Hall's statement is
as follows: When I called him after
her had read the complimentary
copy of the book which I had sent
him, he vigorously, if not vehnemently,; denied that my account of our
conversations on the way to the
Goddard Space Flight Center could
be accurate. I felt on the phone that
Hall's reaction to this account,
which had been based upon careful
notes, was purely an emotional
reaction. I decided to "smoke"
him out as to his own self-assurance.
I asked him, "Suppose I told you
I had tape-recorded our conversations?" (I had not.)
Dick respdnded, "How could you
haye done that."
"Remember that big purple
briefcase I was carrying? I had a
tape-recorder in it," which in fact
I did. But, of course, it was not on.
Well, "smoke" Hall did, and in
fact, he has been "smokin" ever
since. And it is time that this issue
be laid to rest. Dick, you have
never .been surreptitiously taperecorded (at least not by me).
I did make careful notes to record
the Goddard trip—written in the
afternoon following the trip. Since
Hall confesses he made no extensive notes on the contents of the
trip to Goddard conversation, and
since I did, the world is, admittedly
at the mercy of my accuracy.
But, I was very careful about accuracy'in recording all that happened.
As to sending Hall copies of my
scribbly notes to prove what hap14

pened, I ask WHAT WOULD THEY
PROVE? Precisely nothing. It
still is a matter of faith since one
can easily prepare spontaneouslooking notes long after the fact.
Why waste my time and Hall's too?
He is too cautious an investigator
to believe that mere notes from
someone other than himself would
prove anything to him.
Hall asks why I did not taperecord the absolutely vital phone
conversations that "...he claims,
prove a coverup." I told him why
soon after sending him a complimentary copy of the book. But 1
shall repeat it because Hall raises it
again: At the time I had no telephone recording coil for use with
my recorder, and if I'd had one, I
would not have used it without
informing the other party—which
might have precluded candidness.
Butvsince,,,Ha: llLraises the .issue, I
might'turn the tables and ask why
did NICAP or Hall not tape-record
the pertinent conversations with
Frankel in which Hall was reportedly involved?
Hall says he will testify before
any Congressional committee that
"...neither Dr. Frankel nor anyone
else at NASA ever suggested to me
that they were leaning toward an
extraterrestrial
interpretation.''
Hall seems to be suggesting that I
said that Frankel told me he
"leaned" toward such an explanation. My notes, made during and
immediately following the phone
conversation with Frankel, show
that he told me—and I will stick
to it in any government hearing—"
"...there is something that is rather
exciting about the zinc-iron alloy...
Our charts of all alloys known to be
manufactured on Earth, the USSR
included, do not show any alloy

of the specific combination or ratio
of the two main elements involved
here.
This finding definitely
strengthens the case that might be
made for an extraterrestrial origin
of the Socorro object." (See page
139.)
Frankel told me he had already
called Dick Hall and told him the
same thing. Frankel added that
Hall "...was very interested."
Hall verified that Frankel had done
so when I called him soon thereafter.
Hall, upon first reading my book,
did not remember that Dr. Frankel
had reported a zinc-iron alloy, but
his own notes at NICAP did at least
prove that to him. He then readily
acknowledged it.
I suspect Hall's memory is simply not serving him accurately on
other pertinent facts of which he
made no notes. I only wish he had
records of disputed matters—records he could accept. I can easily
believe that Hall is correct in his
recollection that Frankel said to
him that the zinc-iron alloy reminded him of "a zinc pail," but I would
point out that a zinc-galvanized
iron pail (which is to what Hall's
"zinc pail" probably refers) would
not leave a zinc-iron alloy if scraped
onto a rock—it would leave, at best,
zinc and iron mashed together.
Since the first test done at NASA
was X-ray diffraction, a zinc-iron
alloy would reveal a very different
diffraction pattern that would a
mere physical mixture of the two.
And, it was an alloy which Frankel
reported by phone to both me and
Hall that he found. Hall says,
"...when Dr. Frankel talked to me
about the tentative findings of a
zinc-iron alloy..." So, Hall admits
that Frankel reported that the two

metals were alloyed, even though
Hall adds the word "tentative."
Frankel never used that word to
me. He merely said that another
test was needed, "...to get some
readings on some of the elements
that are present only in small
percentages."
I have suggested by phone that
Hall check for himself with expert
metallurgists in order to verify my
statement that the scraping of a
galvanized bucket could not appear
in X-ray diffraction to be an alloy
of zinc and iron, but to my knowledge he has not done so.
Hall says, "A major myth purveyed by Stanford is the impression
he leaves that I more or less twisted
his arm to have the analysis done
by Dr. Frankel at the NASA facility..." Nowhere do I either state
or imply that he twisted my arm!
The loss of the potentially valuable
evidence was the responsibility
of both myself and Hall. If there
was no coverup on NASA's part,
why does Hall try so hard to assert
that I chose NASA (Goddard)
when, as my correspondence with
Hall clearly shows, it was Hall who
first brought Goddard and Frankel
into the candidacy as the place to
use for the analysis, and highly
recommended them.
(Witness
Hall's June 25, 1964 letter to me in
which he says that Frankel "...is
very strongly against suppression
of information." Hall went on to
describe what fine equipment
Frankel had at Goddard and to
highly recommend him. 1 (See page
117 in Socorro 'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry for details.) I think that
maybe Hall really knows, at one
(Continued on page 20)

By Walt Andrus
Columbia Pictures forthcoming
UFO motion picture, written and
directed by Steven Spielberg,
starring Richard Dreyfuss with
Francois Truffaut as Lacombe,
will premiere at the Ziegfield
Theater in New York City and the
Cinerama Globe in Hollywood on or
about November 1. On December
15, 1977, this movie is scheduled
to open in about 400 theaters
across the United States. Some of
us had the privilege of viewing a
promotional film for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
in April at the First International
UFO Congress in Acapulco, Mexico. It featured Dr. J. Allen Hynek,
who served as scientific consultant
for this Phillips
Production.
Columbia Pictures, in their brochure, has stated "millions of
people will experience the most
beautiful, frightening, and significant motion picture adventure of
all .time".
Considering that
"Jaws" cost 9 million dollars to
produce, "Close Encounters pf the
.Third Kind" has a budget of 20
million dollars.
Richard F. Haines, Ph.D.,
Research Scientist and Consultant,
in a letter to MUFON feels that this
motion picture will strongly influence UFO witnesses descriptions
and may possibly ''contaminate"
our efforts to obtain as unbiased
sighting data as possible. His
central concern has been the development of techniques to help make
eye witness reports as reliable
and
faithfully
representative
of the original sensory event as

possible. Dr. Haines has suggested
that MUFON investigators become
prepared for the possible influence
of this movie upon the American
public and their subsequent
reporting of CE-III. Our actions
now will lead to greater understading of the influence of this
mass presentation upon our data.
He has outlined some suggestions
on how we should deal with this
potentially biasing media event.
(1) Each member should take the
initiative to contact the managers
of all local theaters who plan to
show this movie. Try to obtain an
agreement that you will be given
the approximate attendance figures, and starting and final showing dates of the film in your local
theater. These data may then be
correlated later with the frequency
of CE-III type reports in your area.
(2) MUFON members should see
this movie so as to become familiar
with its details. Such ultimate
familiarity will make subsequent
eye witness interviews more sensitively aware of similarities and
differences between a reported CEIII encounter and the movie.
(3) Investigators should adhere to
the following advice when interviewing witnesses and investigating cases. One of your questions
might be "What can you think
of that is anything like the close
encounter you have just had?"
Under no circumstances should the
investigator mention the name of
this movie or its contents until the
interview is almost over. Always
let the eye witness raise the issue.

15

Lucius Foriih

In Others' Words
The August 2 issue of NATIONAL
ENQUIRER featured two articles
of Ufological interest. The first
report dealt with the large triangular UFO seen by police officers
over Memphis, Tennessee on May
17, 1977. The second feature gave
details of some cave paintings in
Baja California which seem to lend
credence to the ancient astronauts
theory, although these examples
of artwork are not too impressive
in the photographs included with
the article.
THE STAR for July 26 rehashes
Kenneth Arnold's opinions of
UFOs and mentions his participation at the recent FATE-sponsored
UFO Congress in Chicago.
The August issue of SCIENCE
DIGEST has an interesting article
by Don Berliner on the omissions
in the Project Blue Book files.
Researcher Barry Greenwood,
who is obtaining microfilm copies of
the complete Blue Book files,
verifies Berliner's contention that
important information (and, in
some instances, complete cases)
has been "sanitized," i.e. deleted.
Berliner's article is excerpted from
a forthcoming book and additional
details concerning this volume will
be presented in a later column,
hopefully.
UFO REPORT for September
includes interesting articles by B.
Ann Slate, Robert A. Goerman,
and others, along with the usual
amount of rehash.
Although I tend to concentrate on
newsstand magazines in this
column, it seems only fair to give
16

equal time to some of the smaller
Ufological
publications
which
contain good material. One such
example is the PAGE RESEARCH
LIBRARY NEWSLETTER, edited
by Dennis Pilichis; You'll normally
find a potpourri of news items,
letters from readers, news of new
books, etc. Dennis also sends out
. PRL catalogs of new and used UFO
books and magazines. If you have
specific wants, you'll find that the
$2.00 for 4 issues of the NEWSLETTER and catalogs is well worth
it. The address is: 6708 Colgate
Avenue - Cleveland, Ohio 44102.
Michale Hervey's UFOs OVER
THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE is
a revised edition of his previous
paperback of the same title. Beginning with introductory material on
UFOs, Hervey then relates press
accounts and first-hand sighting
reports from all areas of Australia,
New Zealand, and Tasmania.
The incidents generally extend back
to the early 1950's, although there
are some historical (pre-1947)
reports scattered through the book.
For anyone not acquainted with
UFO happenings "down under,"
this might prove a useful reference
volume. It is available for approximately $7.00 from Robert Hale
& Co. - Clerkenwell House - Clerkenwell Green - London EC1 OHT,
England.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek's Dell paperback, THE BLUE BOOK REPORT,
has been postponed again. Rumor
has it that it will now be out in
September, but this has not been
confirmed by the publisher.

Those of you who look forward to
each issue of Canadian UFO
Report (as I do), will be pleased to
know that the REPORT'S editor,
John Magor, has had his first
hardcover book published. Entitled
OUR UFO VISITORS, it is largely
a review of the UFO activity which
has occurred in Canada's Western
Mountains and Rocky Mountain
Trench areas. In 1967-68, this
region was subject to a UFO "invasion" and Magor provides the
details of many cases from that
period. While it is true that a good
portion of the material has seen
print in previous issues of the
REPORT, it is well worth re-reading
(for those familiar with it); for newcomers, it clearly shows the vast
amount of UFO activity which
Canadians have witnessed in recent
years. Magor has some good points
to make about the testimonies of
lone witnesses: "If a researcher
never passes the point where he
believes the word of a single witness can be sufficient at times,
I think he is wasting his time. He
has come to a halt because he
continues to put skepticism before
inquiry. He is trying to reduce
the problem to his own terms, which
he will .never do."
OUR UFO
VISITORS has an excellent selection
of photos and illustrations, plus an
index and bibliography.
It is
available from Hancock House
Publishers, Inc. - 12008 - 1st Ave.
South - Seattle, WA 98168. The
price is $8.95 and it certainly has
my recommendation.

UFO Enigma
THE UFO ENIGMA: The Definitive Explanation of the UFO
Phenomena Donald H. Menzel
and Earnest H. Taves. Doubleday
& Company, 1977
$8.95. 297
pages.
Dr. Menzel, who died just a few
months before this book was published was one of the outstanding
American astronomers of the past
half century. Dr. Taves was a close
personal friend of Dr. Menzel, was
a practicing psycho-analyst and is
an active writer of science fiction.
Despite the authors' outstanding
professional backgrounds, the book
in no way lives up to the subtitle.
The tools used here are not those
of science.
Instead they are
character assasination, positive and
negative name calling, selective
choice of facts, misrepresentation,
erros of omission and the other
techniques of the propagandist.
Much of the book is not about
UFOs at all but is textbook material
about sundogs, moondogs, rainbows, meteorological optics, etc.
Of the 33 photos and drawings two
were intentional hoaxes, two were
of a hoax exposed first by a UFO
group of Pittsburgh (though the
group isn't acknowledged), and one
dealt with the Hill abduction. The
other 28 had nothing to do with
UFOs. The 21 chapters have a total
of 129 footnotes. Eleven are to
biblical sources, and twenty-one
are to pre 1940 sources. Yet there
is no mention of the 247 page UFO
Symposium Proceedings published
for a congressional committee after
official hearings on UFOs and con-

taining the testimony of 12 scientists—including Dr. Menzel. There
is no mention of the 310 page book
"UFOs: A Scientific Debate"
published by Cornell University
Press and edited by two astronomers with papers by 16 scientists—including Dr. Menzel. There
is no mention of Project Blue Book
Special Report Number 14, a 300
page volume and the largest officially sponsored, scientific investigation of UFOs ever published. It has categ orizations, quality
evaluations, statistical cross comparisons of over 2000 UFO sightings by professional persons at
Battelle Memorial Institute in
Columbus, Ohio. According to the
Blue Book files Dr. Menzel had a
copy. Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer and dean of American ufologists is mentioned several times
but this book "The UFO Experience" is not. None of the 4 PhD
theses that deal with UFOs are
referenced. No mention is made of
compilations of UFO landings
though one covers more than 800
such cases from 39 countries. The
1966 Gallup Poll on UFOs is briefly
noted but the 1973 Gallup Poll and
several others are not. One wonders if Drs. Menzel and Taves are
unwilling to face up to the facts
provided by these polls—especially
the fact that the greater the education of the individual the MORE
likely to accept UFO reality and the
older the individual (Menzel was
74 and Taves 61) the less likely to
accept UFO reality.
The
primary
investigative
technique used to "identify"

by Stanton T. Friedman
31628 Trevor Avenue
Hayward, CA 94544

almost every case discussed seems
to be arm chair theorizing. Field
investigation, witness interrogation
checking with the weather records,
quantitative calculations all
appear to be practically nonexistent. The reasoning seems to be
that if one can find a possible explanation for a particular sighting,
the fact that it doesn't fit several
important aspects of the sighting
doesn't really matter.
The October, 1961, Salt Lake City
UFO sighting witnessed by the pilot
of a small plane and seven other
witnesses on the ground at midday with 40 mile visibility in clear
skies is dismissed as a sundog.
The facts of the sighting are grossly
distroted; no mention is made of
the facts that the pilot saw the UFO
between him and a mountain, that
the UFO was observed to tilt back
and forth while hovering, had a
lenticular shape, rose straight up
extremely rapidly for about 1000
feet, stopped and then moved off
at high speed. The famous series
of photos taken near the island
of Trinidade in 1958 by a Brazilian
navy photographer is dismissed as
an "obvious hoax" though computer enhancement techniques do not
support this view nor does the testimony of the others present at the
time the pictures were taken. No
source is given for the statement
that the photographer was a
"known hoaxter". As is the case
throughout the book holier—thanthou statements are made to take
the place of solid facts.
Much effort is spent in explaining away the famous abduction of

17

Betty and Barney Hill and Marjorie
Fish's detailed efforts to reconstruct in 3 dimensions the 2-dimensional star map drawn by Betty
under posthypnotic suggestion.
She had earlier described this map
as having been shown her on board
a UFO. Menzel and Taves were
able to show, as anybody would expect, that if one throws 47 seeds on
a two dimensional flat area and selects 15 seed positions to find the
best fit with a preselected pattern,
namely Betty's map, one can find
a pattern that more or less matches
the given pattern. The number 47
was selected because that is the
number of sun-like stars in our
close galactic neighborhood. How
ever, Ms. Fish did NOT restrict
attention to only the sun-like stars.
One of her models, for example,
included all 252 stars in the volume
taken up by that model. The stars
in our neighborhood are NOT distributed at random like seeds
thrown on a table. They are where
they are. The pattern found by
Ms. Fish was the only one of
thousands considered which matched reality and made sense. If her
solution was just a random guess
"hit", why was it not found until
AFTER the release of the 1969
Gliese catalog of nearby stars with
its updated distance data? Why
doesn't Menzel deal with, or even
mention, the very special features
of the base stars, Zeta 1 Reticuli
and Zeta 2 Reticuli, found by
Ms. Fish? Is it really just coincidence that they happen to be not
only suitable for planets and life
but are also the closest to each .
other pair of such stars in our
entire neighborhood being only
3 light weeks apart?
That Drs. Menzel and Taves have
no real concern with a scientific

18

approach to UFO investigations is
clear from the statement "Philip
Klass, author of several books on
UFOs has been the one other
investigator (in addition to DHM)
who has adopted an unfailingly scientific approach in his inquiries".
A study of both books by avionics
writer Klass and the cases explained therein shows that he used
the same unscientific techniques as
Menzel and Taves. The facts in
sighting after sighting are misrepresented, positive and negative
name calling abound, there are
significant errors of omission which
the reader has no way of knowing.
Kalss did do far more in the way of
actual rather than armchair investigation but the bias is equally
clear. In short The UFO Enigma
is a good book for those interested
in atmosphereic physics and
Identified flying objects. It is definitely NOT the definitive explanation of the phenomenon of
UNIDENTIFIED Flying Objects.

(Continued from page 4)

More detailed information about
this case is to be found in the
records of the UFO section. The
investigated case that we investigated as the active members of
UFO section is interesting for it
leads to pressumption that the two
eye-witnesses spotted the object
first as it was making its preparation for landing. This is also
confirmed by the shine, that was to
be seen behind the forest and which
the eye-witnesses interpreted as
the result of a fire. Still there
were to be found no traces of its
possible landing.
Everything points to the fact that
the UFO spotting in Velika was
a very real one, but for the present
the origin is unknown.
PS: I wish to thank our active
members Franci Bricelj and Kristan
Branko for their excellent work in
the field.

MUFON AMATEUR RADIO NETS

(weekly)

NET

TIME
C.D.S.T.

NET
CONTROLS

40 meters

7237 KHZ.

0700

N1JS

SAT

75 meters

3075 KHZ.

0800

WA9ARG

SUN

20 meters

14,284 KHZ.

1300

DAY

FREQUENCY

SAT

N1J8&WONC

DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE
Through the fine efforts of Elmer A. Krai, Central Regional
Director, Glenn Underhill, Ph.D.
has accepted the position of State
Director for Nebraska, replacing
Elmer in this post. Dr. Underhill
teaches physics at Kearney State
College in Kearney, Nebraska
68847. He may be contacted by
telephone at his home 308/8932401 or at the college on 308236-4139. Glenn is also an amateur
radio operator with the call letters
WRSM. Elmer Krai will assits
assist
Dr. Underhill in his new role as
administrative assistant.
New State Section Directors
appointed during July include the
following:
Raymond Jordan,
3831 North Paradise Road, Flagstaff, AZ
86001 for Coconino
County; Christopher S. Centi,
P.O. Box 142 Jamestown, NY
14701 for Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties in western New
York State; and Thomas P. Deuley,
Route 2, Box 323, Moyock, NC
27958 to cover Currituck, Camden,
Pasquotank, Perquimans and Gates
counties in North-Carolina.
Two new Research Specialists
have volunteered their services to
help in resolving the UFO phenomenon. They are Willard D.
Nelson, 18302 Montana Circle,
Villa Park, CA 92667, specializing
in aerospace structures and materials; and Michael Fling, 79A-6
Broadmeadow St., Marlborough,

MA 01752 in propulsion methods.
Michael has his Masters Degree
in Mechanical Engineering.
MUFON's professional stature is
further enhanced by the appointment of two talented gentlemen to
our Board of Advisory Consultants.
Harold E. Roland, Ph.D., 6504
Via Siena, Rancho Palos Verdes,
CA 90274, a professor at the
University of Southern California,
will apply his expertise to aerodynamics. He has 22 years of experience as a military avaitor. In
the medical field, Howard N. Kandell, M.D., 6050 North 23rd Place,
Phoenix,AZ 85016 has volunteered
his services as a physician, specializing in the medical aspects as related to abductees and contactees.
Dr. Kandell conducted a physical
examination of Travis Walton,
as an example of his work. Dr.
Kandell attended the recent 1977
MUFON UFO SYMPOSIUM in
Scottsdale, AZ on July 16 and 17.
The August issue of THE
MUFON UFO JOURNAL will contain an overview of the "1977
MUFON UFO SYMPOSIUM",
specifically for those who were
unable to attend. At this time,
the MUFON Board of Directors
would like to congratulate the hosts
for the symposiumâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;MUFON/
GSW for this educational, enlightening, and enjoyable event. It
was planned in detail and implemented in a professional manner,
with outstanding prior television,

by
Walt Andrus

radio, and newspaper publicity.
Special thanks for hosting this
affair is extended to William
H. Spaulding, Director of GSW
and his very able associates.
Richard Gottlieb introduced the
speakers and served as the master
of ceremonies. The success of the
symposium must * be attributed to
the dedication and work of GSW
colleagues such as Bill and Rosemary Baum, John Schaefer, Susan
Spaulding, and Lori Field, just to
mention a few, knowing that there
were many more who contributed
their time and efforts. This includes the young folks associated
with the "Junior Sky Watchers",
who constructed an immense
"welcome" banner specifically for
the symposium.
All of the papers presented,
plus two additional published
papers are now available in a
one hundred and sixty-six page
softback book titled "1977 MUFON
UFO SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS". A copy may be secured by
writing to MUFON, 103 Oldtowne
Road, Seguin, TX 78155 USA and
enclosing a check or money order
for five dollars (postpaid).

MUFON
103 OLOTOWNE RD.
S E G U I N , TX 78155

19

RECAPPING AND COMMENTING
By Richard Hall (MUFON International Coordinator)
(Comments in this month's column
are based, in part, on articles
appearing in MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 112, dated March 1977).

In our search for meaningful
evaluations of UFO data, we must
avoid the tendency to think that
machines—modern technology—
can provide "magic" shortcuts to
truth. Computer photo-enhancement programs, polygraphs ("lie
detectors"), the
psychological
stress evaluator (PSE), and the like
all can be useful tools and aids to
evaluation, in the proper hands.
All, however, are programmed
and operated by human beings and
can be operated with more or less
sophistication and training. None
of these can tell us unequivocally
that a report—or photograph—is
true or false simply by being
applied. Both the application and
interpretation require considerable
knowledge and care, and both need
to be scrutinized closely by other
scientists or technicians to assure
that proper techniques have been
used and proper principles applied
in the interpretation.
Without
this kind of cross-checking, application of these devices cannot
be termed "scientific."
The same applies to the increasing use of regressive hypnotic
techniques with UFO witnesses.
This is even more of an art than a
science, but unquestionably has
tremendous
potential—properly
applied—to help witnesses recall

details that they otherwise would
not be able to do from conscious
recollection. However, it is naive
in the extreme to conclude from the
fact that a witness under hypnosis
tells a story of being abducted by
spacemen that it really happened.
In the course of my six years'
employment by the American
Psychological Association, I had
occasion to read numerous articles
about hypnosis and hypnotic regression, and it is clear to me that
improperly questioned witnesses
can and do fabricate stories that
bear no relationship to reality.
Many people can perform hypnosis, but relatively few have the
background and training to interpret the results they get. In general
clinical psychologists who use
hypnosis in the course of patient
therapy, and who are professionals
whose work is under constant
check by their peers, are best
equipped to evaluate when the
stories they get are "truth" rather
than artifacts. In some applied
settings, such as law enforcement
work, experienced hypnotists may
also have the kind of practical
experience with a large variety
of subjects that would allow them
to be good judges of "truth."
The key in this, as in so many
other aspects of UFO research,
is the critical examination and
cross-checking of methods and of
principles of interpretation which
go by the name of "science."
Any result or finding, if it is valid,
ought to be able to withstand

critical review, and without this
process it can hardly be called
"truth."
I am convinced that, on the
basis of strong circumstantial
evidence, all of these devices and
methods need to be applied to UFO
cases by the best practitioners
available, and that their results
need to be minutely examined by all
interested scientists and specialists.
Then and only then might we begin
to think of "ufology" as deserving
of being called a science. In particular, I am convinced that we need
the help of the best clinical hypnotists before we can begin to make
any sense at all out of the plethora
of "abduction" stories. Taking
these stories at face value is totally
unjustified. However, rejecting the
stories out of hand, without examination by the most knowledgable
specialists is equally unjustified.
(Continued from page 15)
level, that there was a NASA coverup and wants to escape any guilt. I
cannot say I would react otherwise.
But we are both to blame for a bad
final judgement of where to take
the Socorro metallic slivers. Hall
certainly did not twist my arm, and
I definitely did not twist his. Yet
Hall says, "For reasons of his own,
Stanford chose (actually, I conceded to Hall's suggestion!) to have
the analysis done at Goddard..." I
am disappointed at Hall's failure
to present both sides of the
question.